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A DOUBTFUL ISLAND OF THE PACIFIC 



BY 



JAMES D. HAGUE 



Reprinted from the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, DECEMBER, 1904 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

PRESS OF JUDD & DETWEILER 

1904 






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A DOUBTFUL ISLAND OF THE PACIFIC 



By James D. Hague 



Data concernmg the questionable existeyice of a reported island or islaiids in the 
North Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Pajiama, with results of the cruise recently 
made by the U. S. ship Tacoma in search of such islands, with some disiussion of the 
reasons for believi?ig that the U. S. sloop-of-war Levant, which disappeared 77iystcri- 
ously in i860 on her voyage from Hawaii to Panama, may have been wrecked on an 
island in this neighborhood, with the possible survival of some of the ship'' s co^npany. 



IN the North Pacific Ocean, about 
1 ,000 to 1 , 200 miles east-southeast 
from Hawaii, somewhere between 
the meridians of 133 and 138 degrees of 
longitude west from Greenwich, and in- 
cluded within the fifteenth and twentieth 
parallels of north latitude, substantially 
in a direct line between the port of Hilo, 
on the Island of Hawaii, and the Bay of 
Panama (nearly 4,500 miles distant), 
there is a mid-ocean area covering about 
200 miles in latitude by 150 or 200 miles 
in longitude, equal to 30,000 or 40,000 
square miles, from which region during 
the past eighty years or more, from time 
to time, there have come occasional re- 
ports of an island or islands said to have 
been observed by passing navigators. 

Nearly, if not quite, all these reports 
appear to have come originally, mostly 



more than fifty years ago, from cruising 
whalemen, who were practically the 
only voyagers who until lately ever 
found any occasion or good reason to 
visit this remote part of the Pacific in 
pursuit of business. The region lies 
beyond the usual tracks and sailing 
routes of commercial voyagers, and very 
few vessels of other classes excepting 
whalemen have had any occasion to 
traverse this unfrequented sea, which, if 
it contain no island, is not far from the 
center of the largest landless ocean area 
on the surface of the globe, while, if 
there be an island, it is perhaps the 
most remotely isolated land in the world. 
The accompanying maps show, first, 
on the smaller scale, the general rela- 
tions of this remote region to the Amer- 
ican coast and to the Hawaiian Islands: 



* Read in part before the Eighth International Geographic Congress at a meeting of the 
Section of Oceanography, September 13, 1904. 



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480 



The National Geographic Magazine 



and, secondly, in larger detail, some of 
the assigned positions of reported isl- 
ands, reefs, or shoals, said to have been 
observed within the questionable area, 
together with the sailing tracks of the 
several vessels, not less than six, which 
from time to time during the past eighty 
years have been sent to explore the 
doubtful region. It is true that of all 
these reported islands, reefs, or shoals 
no one has ever yet been found by any 
of the vessels sent to seek them; but it 
is also true that a very large part of the 
questionable area from which the un- 
certain reports of observed islands have 
come has never yet been seen or visited 
by any of the exploring vessels sent out 
for such purpose, whose sailing tracks 
are shown on the accompanying maps. 

The earliest of these expeditions ap- 
pears to have been that of H. M. ship 
Blossom, in 1827, under the command of 
Capt. F. W. Beechey, who in his narra- 
tive (vol. 2, p. 88) gives a short account 
of an unsuccessful search for reported 
islands near the Blossom' srowio^, and es- 
pecially in the region of 16° north lati- 
tude and 1 30°-! 33° west longitude. He 
mentions Henderson's and Cooper's Isl- 
ands by name, and has " New Island," 
in about latitude 17° north and longi- 
tude 136° west, on his track chart. His 
search was too limited to settle the ques- 
tion conclusively, but he says he saw 
none of the usual signs of land. His 
track chart shows that he made his ex- 
amination between January 11 and 28, 
1827. No soundings are noted thereon. 
In a footnote, page 88, he adds that he 
has heard that an island of moderate 
height has been seen by the Sultan, an 
American whaler, in latitude 15° 30' 
north and longitude 134° west. 

Ten years later, in 1837, Capt. Sir 
Edward Belcher, who had served in the 
above-mentioned expedition of the Blos- 
som, revisited the region in command of 
H. M. ship Sulphur with the- consort 
Starling. In his narrative of this voy- 
age (vol. I, p. 50) he furnishes a de- 



tailed track chart of their search within 
the area between 15° to 18° north lati- 
tude and 129° to 139° west longitude. 

Careful attention is paid to showing 
the area visible in daylight and the space 
covered by night. All soundings, taken 
two-hourly, with as much line as the 
velocity of the vessel would admit, are 
noted at 50 to 65 fathoms, without 
bottom. 

The following notes of his itinerary 
are drawn from Belcher's narrative : 

' 'June 20-2 i .• — The Starling was now 
directed to pursue a course so as to enter 
on the 130° meridian in latitude 17°^ 
north. I bore up to preserve a parallel 
course to her, and enter at 16° 30' north, 
at which point another cluster of doubt- 
ful islands was reported to exist, as well 
as a continuous batch given us by the 
whalers in 1826 and 1827, as far as 
135°, and which we then sought in the 
Blossom, without success. As the Star- 
ling would preserve a W. b. S. and the 
Sulphur a W. b. N. course through that 
region, avoiding the Blossojn' s track, 
they ought to have been found if they 
existed. 

' 'June 22. — Wind light, medusae more 
plentiful, and a few sticks floating, ex- 
cited our hopes of finding land ; but 
the current having been determined to 
set S. 86° W., this would bring them 
from Clarion Island. 

''June 24. — Breeze variable, .water 
smooth, tropic birds {Phceton iztherius) 
and frigate pelican {Pelccanus aquilus) 
also observed. As these latter birds do 
not go far from land, I am disposed to 
believe some one of these reports to be 
well founded, but the position errone- 
ously determined. 

"June 25. — . . . Should chance 
lead me in this direction again I shall 
certainl}- cross the meridian of today 
fifteen miles farther south. 

" Jmie 26. — Wind same, fewer birds 
but no symptoms of land. 

"June 27. — On the 27th entered the 
limits assigned to whalers' discoveries.. 





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482 



The National Geographic Magazine 



'^ JuTie 28. — Crossed Blossom^ s track. 

^^ June 29. — Passed over many posi- 
tions assigned — no signs of land. 

' ' I have been thus minute upon this 
subject, as I can not divest myself of 
the impression that land exists in this 
neighborhood. So many assertions can 
hardly rest on imagination." 

The sailing tracks of the Sulphur and 
Starling within the above-indicated area 
appear on the accompanying maps as 
shown on an old chart of the North 
Pacific Ocean (copyrighted in 1849, with 
additions to i864,byE. and G.W. Blunt, 
New York), and a' number of islands, 
several separate and some in two small 
groups, are copied from the same source. 

In 1839, two years after Sir Edward 
Belcher's search in the Sulphur, one of 
the vessels of the United States explor- 
ing expedition, the Relief, on her voyage 
from Callao, Peru, to the Hawaiian Isl- 
ands, was ordered by Admiral Wilkes 
to visit this region of questionable isl- 
ands under instructions addressed, to 
Tieut. Commander A. K. Long, as fol- 
low^s : 

" U. S. Ship Vincennes, 
^' Callao, July 12th, iSjg. 

" Sir : You will proceed from this port 
to Oahu, Sandwich Islands, taking in 
your route the American group of islands 
in latitude 16° 10' N., longitude 134° 
50' W. These islands have been unsuc- 
cessfully looked for by Captain Beechey 
in this position. You will therefore 
make the latitude in 130° west, to the 
eastward of their supposed situation, 
and run along it until you reach 140° W. ; 
thence direct to Oahu." 

The accompanying map shows the 
sailing track of the RelieJ, covering more 
than fifteen degrees of longitude, along 
the latitude of 15° to 16° north. I have 
not found in Admiral Wilkes' narrative 
any detailed report of this cruise of the 
RelieJ, but it is safe to assume that no 
land was discovered in the region re- 
ferred to. 



The Hydrographic Office of the Navy 
Department has published ' ' Reported 
Dangers in the North Pacific," and in 
the " Supplement 417, 1880," No. 563, 
a mention is made of " a group of isl- 
ands " in latitude 16° 30', witl! the au- 
thority, " Krusenstern, from American 
Whalers," and an "island" in latitude 
i5°3o', longitude 136°, Captain Bunker, 
1823. 

For some of the foregoing interesting 
references, with data from Blunt's chart, 
I am indebted to Prof. George David- 
son, of the University of California, 
during many years chief of the Pacific 
Coast Division of the LTnited States Coast 
Survey, who writes as follows concern- 
ing the reported islands : 

" I judge that the group of ten islets, 
close together, really refer to one or two 
islets, and that its position was reported 
by some whalers to many others, w^ho, 
each independently, reported it without 
having seen it. No body of whalers 
could have so closeh' determined the 
positions indicated. The eastern com- 
pact group of four may really refer to 
the larger group. The two islands. 
' ' New ' ' and ' ' Roca Coral, ' ' may refer 
to one island, with a longitude much 
west of the former groups. 

" One thing seems to me probable, 
that there is some danger to navigation 
in that region. And now that our com- 
merce is rapidly increasing and these 
reported dangers lie directl}' in the route 
of sailing vessels to Australia from San 
Diego and San Francisco, it becomes 
incumbent upon our government to 
make an exhaustive survey of that re- 
gion. 

' ' Whatever has been done by our 
vessels in that region has been only in- 
cidental to other duties, and only satis- 
factory on the line or lines on which 
they sailed. Some naval officer and 
some vessel fitted for such work should 
be employed a full season, if necessary, 
to make an exhaustive investigation of 
the region of the reported dangers." 



A Doubtful Island of the Pacific 



483 



During the sixty years following Sir 
Edward Belcher's search in the doubtful 
region (1837), there were, so far as I 
am aware, no trustworthy observations 
of land reported in that quarter, unless 
the someWnat vague statements and un- 
certain memories of old-time whalemen 
be excepted. Nevertheless nearl}- all 
■the standard charts, maps, and globes 
continued to show in that neighbor- 
hood, at least until lately, one or more 
islands of doubtful existence and posi- 
tion. It is said, moreover, that one or 
more vessels have visited the field on 
various occasions seeking guano islands 
without finding any. 

In August, 1899, the Fish Commis- 
sion steamer Albatross, Commander Jef- 
ferson F. Moser, with a party of scien- 
tific explorers under the direction of 
Mr Alexander Agassiz, left San Fran- 
cisco for the Marquesas, with instruc- 
tions to traverse the doubtful region, 
keeping a careful lookout for land within 
sight. From Captain Moser' s reports I 
draw the following notes : 

" Shortly after midnight, September 
2d, we arrived in the vicinity of the 
danger previously referred to, and 
marked ' (?) Island ' on H. O. chart 
No. 527-, in lat. 17° 10' N., long. 136° 
3' W., and reported -under the name 
of ' Island,' ' New Island,' '' Roca 
Coral,' etc. This danger had pre- 
viously been searched for by H. M. S. 
Rattlesnake and H. M. S. SiilpJmr. The 
following soundings were obtained by 
:ihe Albat7oss in that vicinity : 

"Station AA No. 8, lat. 17° 13' N., 
long. 136° 09' W., 2,776 fms. 

"Station AA No. 9, lat. 16° 62' N., 
long. 136° 12' W., 3,003 fms. 

"Station AA No. 10, lat. 16° 38' N., 
long. 136° 14' W., 3,088 fms." 

"At each of the first two stations the 
operation of sounding occupied about 
an hour, and during those times a bright 
lookout was kept for laud, without re- 
sult. At the last station a haul of the 



beam trawl was made after sounding, 
the operation occupying from 8.04 a. m. 
to 3.45 p. m. The lookout kept at this 
time for land was likewise without re- 
sult. The weather while in this vicin- 
ity was clear and pleasant, with light 
breeze from northeastward and smooth 
sea ; horizon generally clear. It was 
noted that at several points close to the 
horizon low leaden cloud masses as- 
sumed a hard, sharp, fixed form, hav- 
ing the outline of and resembling dis- 
tant high islands. Tropic birds were 
constantly about, and the previous day 
(Sept. ist) several petrels were ob- 
served. On the 3d sharks and tropic 
birds were seen. The presence of this 
animal life might add strength to the 
presumption that land was somewhere 
near, but similar animal life accom- 
panied the vessel on the entire voyage, 
and was no more abundant in this lo- 
cality than at any other point on the 
course. My opinion is that this danger 
does not exist * zvithin sight, tinder fair 
conditions , of the locality over which the 
soundings were made.'' 

Since the foregoing report was made all 
indications of islands within this doubt- 
ful region seem to have been omitted 
from later charts issued by the LTnited 
States Hj^drographic Office, which show 
in that neighborhood only the deep 
soundings recorded by the Albatross. 

Within recent years the establishment 
of a steamship line between San Fran- 
cisco and Tahiti, of which the sailing 
route lies more or less within the ques- 
tionable field, has given further oppor- 
tunity for occasional search there. 

In March, 1902, Capt. Robert T. Law- 
less, commanding the steamship Aus- 
tralia, of the above-mentioned line, ob- 
served, as he believes, certain indications 
of shoal water, which he reported as 

* The words in italics were added by Com- 
mander Moser in June, IQ03, to his report, 
originally made in September, 1S99, after fur- 
ther consideration of the possibility that the 
island may exist beyond his range of vision 
from the Albatross. 



484 



The National Geographic Magazine 



follows: ' ' On my wa}' to San Francisco 
from Tahiti on the morning of March 
17, 1902, in the latitude (see map) of 
18° 56' N., longitude 136° 10' W., at 
5.30 a. m. , I passed two patches of what 
appeared to be, and no doubt was, shoal 
water. It was blowing a strong trade 
wind at the time and the sea was too 
rough to lower a boat to sound, which 
I should have done had it been smooth. 
Meeting a shoal so suddenly and unex- 
pectedly, I did not leave the bridge for 
several hours, thinking I might meet 
others. I had to alter the ship's course 
two points to avoid the patches, as they 
were right ahead when first seen. The 
course from Tahiti does not lie in the 
direction of these shoals, but strong 
trades compelled me to keep off in that 
direction that I might carry fore-and-aft 
sail. The latitude can be relied on to 
one or two miles. The longitude to, say, 
five miles." Captain Lawless further 
writes: ' ' It will be seen that at 5. 30 a. m. 
the sun could cast no cloud shadows on 
the water, the rifts in the clouds could 
reflect no bright streaks, and as there 
were two separate patches, divided by a 
•clear channel, it could not be attributed 
to any discoloration caused by whales, 
nor could it be schools of fish, as the 
approach of the steamer would frighten 
them away. Although the sea was fairly 
rough, it did not break, showing that 
there must be 30 or 40 feet of water over 
the shoal, but I venture to say that in a 
storm, when the waves are 15 to 20 feet 
high , it would break . By consulting the 
chart, it will be seen that this part of 
the ocean is used but very little, and 
shoals, or even small low islands, might 
still exist there which are not now 
charted." 

This observation of shoal water, as 
thus reported by Captain Lawless, indi- 
cating the possible existence of a shoal 
region, where reefs and islands might 
naturally occur, did much to revive and 
stimulate afresh the interest, not only 
of the Hydrographic Office, for its im- 



portance to navigators, but also of all 
persons who for any conceivable reason 
might in any way be concerned in the 
question of the existence of islands, 
reefs, or shoals in that part of the ocean. 

Among such persons w^as one Capt. 
John De Greaves, then living at Hono- 
lulu, and there sometimes formerly 
known as the King's "scientific ad- 
viser," who, it was said, during many 
years prior thereto had constantly as- 
serted his positive knowledge of such an 
island in that region referred to, claim- 
ing to have discovered and landed upon 
such island, and to have found deposits 
of guano thereon, in the summer of 
1859, while on a voyage from the port 
of Honolulu, Hawaii, to the port of 
Callao, Peru. The memories of his 
visit having been apparently aroused by 
the announcement of Captain Lawless' s 
observation, he gave a very full and 
minutely detailed narrative of his ad- 
venture to a local press reporter, who 
promptly sent the story to the New 
York Sunday Herald, in which paper 
it was published on May 4, 1902. 

About this time certain incidental 
circumstances had led by chance to the 
revival of a very deep personal interest, 
which I had strongly felt during more 
than forty years, in the generally for- 
gotten mysterious fate of the United 
States sloop-of-war Levant, which hav- 
ing sailed on September 18, i860, from 
the port of Hilo, Hawaii, for the port 
of Panama, has never since been heard 
from by any trace whatever, unless it 
be in certain wreckage found on the 
south shore of Hawaii, in June, 186 1, 
there and then identified by local au- 
thorities as wreckage from the Levant. 

When I read in the Herald on May 
4, 1902, that De Greaves had sailed from 
Hawaii for Callao in the summer of 
1859, one year before the sailing of the 
Levant from practically the same point 
of departure, and, so far as sailing 
courses might be concerned, for the 
same destination, at the same time of 



A Doubtful Island of the Pacific 



485 



year, liable to similar conditions of 
season, weather, prevailing winds and 
currents, it seemed a reasonable suppo- 
sition that the Levant might follow, in 
i860, the leading vessel on her voyage 
of 1859 in substantially the same courses, 
as one arrow might follow another, shot 
from the same bow and aimed at the 
same target. According to De Greaves' s 
story, when he was about a thousand 
miles east of Hawaii, or (see map) in 
longitude 136° and north latitude 17°, 
he discovered an island, about 50 to 70 
feet high and two miles long, right 
ahead, about nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing. If theZ(f?z'a«/had reached substan- 
tially De Greaves' s point of discover}^ in 
the night, it is more than probable she 
would have sailed in the darkness onto 
the island and made shipwreck there. 

Although De Greaves' s story, on care- 
ful inquiry and search of records, was 
presently found to have been largely, if 
not whoU}'-, invented for the occasion,* 
nevertheless the possibility that the 
Levant might have been wrecked on 
some island, somewhere in her sailing 
track between Hilo and Panama, seemed 
most reasonable, especially \\\ view of cer- 
tain indications of the above-mentioned 
wreckage that the ship had not found- 
ered in mid-ocean (as once determined 
by act of Congress), and had not been 
dismasted in a storm, but had been 
broken to pieces on rocks, and, further, 
in view of the much increased probability 
that such rocks, perhaps a low reef, per- 
haps a habitable island, might be found 
in the neighborhood of Captain Law- 
less's recently discovered shoal. 

I had the honor to bring the matter 
to the attention of President Roosevelt 
in June, 1903, and thereafter, upon 
presentation and consideration of the 
known facts at the Navy Department, 
the Secretary of the Navy, Hon. W. H. 
Moody, determined to send an expedi- 
tion, as soon as one or more suitable 

* Presumably to stimulate renewed interest 
in further search for sruano islands. 



vessels could be spared for the service, 
to finally settle the question of the ex- 
istence or non-existence of any shoal, 
reef, or island in the doubtful region.-'^ 
This determination, as originally 
formed, contemplated the sending of 
one, or perhaps two, vessels suitably 
equipped for deep-sea sounding, f of 
large bunker capacity, carrying suffi- 
cient coal for a cruise long enough to 
traverse the entire field and overlook in 
daylight every square mile of the ques- 
tionable area. No such vessel had yet 
been found available for the proposed 
work, when in May, 1904, the Tacoma, 
a newly built cruiser, was about to make 
a trial and practice voyage from the 
Bremerton Navy Yard to Honolulu and 
back to the Pacific coast. Although 
the Tacoma' s coal-carrying capacity was 
too small to allow more than a few days' 
detour, it was thought expedient for her 
on the return voyage to visit the locality 
of Captain Lawless' s reported observa- 
tion and the assigned position of De 
Greaves' s alleged discovery for such 
reconnaissance as might be feasible under 
existing conditions. 

*The late Rear Admiral H. C Taylor, at 
that time Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, 
manifested a very strong interest in the pro- 
posed search, and he repeacedly expressed his 
earnest desire to see it conclusively accom- 
plished. 

t Deep-sea soundings, showing the depres- 
sions and elevations of the ocean bottom, may 
often give significant indications of submarine 
peaks, plateaus, or ridges, which, if followed 
up, may lead to the discovery of shoals or 
islands visible at the surface. The deep-sea 
soundings in the North Pacific, made some 
years ago by the U. S. ship Tuscarora while 
sounding for a cable line from San Francisco 
to Honolulu, under the command of Rear Ad- 
miral Erben, discovered a shoal region in 
which the depth of water suddenly changed 
from more than 2,200 to less than 400 fathoms 
and deepened again as suddenly, indicating 
the crossing of a submarine peak or ridge. 
This shoal region lies in 33° north and near 
133° west, about 900 to 1,000 miles due north of 
the doubtful iield here under consideration. 

The Tacoma was not furnished with any 
deep-sea sounding apparatus, and her search 
in that regard was therefore only superficial. 



486 



The National Geographic Magazine 



In his report of the cruise of the 
Tacoma,^'^ Commander R. F. Nicholson 
writes as follows : 

" Leaving Honolulu on May 19, I 
proceeded to the latitude indicated and, 
upon the assumption that the latitude 
was nearly correct, and that the greatest 
errors in the reported position would be 
in longitude, commenced search on May 
24 at longitude 138 west, where, upon 
an old map seen in Honolulu, an island 
is shown marked Eclipse. This is one 
degree to the westward of the position 
indicated by the department. We ran 
on that parallel to longitude 136° west, 
reaching the vicinity of the Albatross's 
search and soundings of 3,000 fathoms. 
The atmosphere was clear and the hori- 
zon well defined. From aloft any land 
could have been seen at least ten miles 
on either side of our track. At night 
the engines were stopped. I then pro- 
ceeded to visit in order the reported 
positions of islands as given below and 
as are shown on the accompanying trac- 
ing of our track : Bunker's Island, lat. 
15° 30' N., long. 136° W., reported 
by Captain Bunker in 1823 ; Sultan's 
(American whaler), reported in lat. 15° 
30' N., long. 134° W., prior to 1827; 
Groupe, lat. 16° 30' N., long. 134° 30' 
W., authority of Krusenstern, from 
American whalers, reported prior to 
1849 ; De Greaves, English resident of 
Hawaii, asserts having landed on an 
island (see map^ in lat. about 17° 40' 
N., long, about 135° 30' W., whilst 
mate on the British bark Ge?iera/ Wool 
in 1858 ; shoal (see map) reported by 
Captain Lawless in lat. 18° 56' N., 
longitude 136° 10' W., who says he 
saw discolored water, which he believed 
to be shoals, but did not stop his ves- 
sel, the Australia, to sound. 

* By direction of the vSecretary of the Navy 
I joiaed the Tacoma at Honolulu, for the pur- 
pose of participating personally in her explora- 
tion of the doubtful islands region and in seek- 
ing traces of the lost Levant, whose departure 
from the same port, on her fatal voj-age, I had 
witnessed forty-four years before. 



" Captain Lawless states that he was 
sure of his position within one mile of 
latitude and five minutes of longitude. 
I sounded in given position of L^awless's 
shoal and in its vicinity, getting no bot- 
tom at 280 fathoms. During the search, 
which lasted four days, neither land, 
shoals, nor signs of land were seen. In 
fact, the locality was remarkable for the 
total absence of birds." 

The above- stated result of the Ta- 
coma' s search is absolutely conclusive as 
far as it concerns the ocean area actually 
seen from the track line of the ship. 
The total area thus examined is prob- 
ably about one- quarter to one-third of 
the questionable region, assuming that 
area, as hereinbefore stated, at about 
30,000 to 40,000 square miles, whereof 
about 10,000 square miles have now been 
actually seen in searches made by the 
Tacoma and the Albatross. 

The cruise of the Tacoma has there- 
fore negatively and conclusively dis- 
posed of half a dozen or more reported 
islands as charted in certain defined 
positions, and it has definitively elim- 
inated from further consideration of 
doubtful reports an area of about 10,000 
square miles, leaving a still questionable 
region of twice or three times that area 
open to further search. 

Reference to the map will show that 
this region, still unexplored and un- 
visited by any (excepting the Albatross') 
of the above-mentioned searching ves- 
sels, lies in latitude somewhere between 
17° and 20° north and in longitude be- 
tween the meridians of 133° 30' and 136° 
west , an area of about 30, 000 square miles 
or more, nearly equivalent, say, for ex- 
ample, to the area of the State of Maine. 
It is readily imaginable that such an 
island as the whalemen have reported 
may have been observed b}^ them within 
this field, which lies wholly out of sight 
of vessels following the sailing tracks 
shown, further south, in the accom- 
panying map, and it may be noted that 
this field of possibilities lies due east of 



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488 



The National Geographic Magazine 



Lawless' s shoal, reported in latitude 
i8° 56' north, while the older charts all 
indicate islands in the neighborhood that 
have been reported long ago in latitudes 
little north of 20° and south of 17°. 

There is another shred of circumstan- 
tial evidence indicating the existence of 
an island in this neighborhood. Some 
years ago, about 1889 (?), the ship 
James Campbell was abandoned near lati- 
tude 20° north and longitude 120° west, 
800 miles from the coast to windward 
and 2,300 miles from Hawaii to lee- 
ward. Two boats left the ship, steer- 
ing for Hilo, Hawaii. The larger and 
better boat, well adapted to sailing, con- 
tained the captain with his wife and girl 
baby and several sailors; the second boat 
carried five or six sailors. The captain's 
boat made sail, and at first towed the 
other boat, but after two or three days 
parted company, leaving her behind. 
After 23 days the second boat's crew 
reached Hilo, expecting to find the cap- 
tain's boat already there. The weather 
had been favorable and the sea smooth, 
and nothing had occurred to account for 
the failure of the captain's boat to ar- 
rive. It has never been heard from. It 
is thought by some that the captain may 
have sighted and landed upon an island, 
where, if he found it habitable, he might 
have preferred to stay rather than take 
the risk of a further voyage in an open 
boat with wife and child. 

The results of the Tacoma' s search 
throw no light upon the mysterious fate 
of the Levant, unless the certainty that 
there is no island or reef where the 
cruiser has looked for one may, in 
view of all the now known facts, be re- 
garded as an indication that there must 
be such an island or reef of rocks else- 
where on which the Levant was wrecked, 
since it now seems almost unquestion- 
able that the Levant was broken to pieces 
on a reef or island somewhere in her 
sailing track between Hilo and Panama. 
It is now known from his ofiicial records 
that when the Levant sailed from Hilo 



her commander, William E. Hunt, in- 
tended to take the northern course, 
heading eastward toward the coast of 
California, rather than southward toward 
the equator, and thus probably travers- 
ing the very region in which the ques- 
tionable island is supposed to be situated. 
Within nine months after her departure 
a drifting spar and a part of a lower yard 
were found on the Hawaiian shore 75 
miles south of Hilo. This spar was ex- 
amined and identified as the mainmast 
of the Levant by three witnesses, one of 
whom was the pilot who had taken the 
Levant in and out of the port of Hilo 
and who knew the dimensions of her 
spars. 

It has been generally believed that the 
Levant capsized or foundered in some 
tidal wave or overwhelming sea; but in 
such case her mainmast would probably 
have gone to the bottom with the ship, 
whereas the mainmast found on the 
shore of Hawaii would seem to have been 
torn out of the vessel when broken to 
pieces on a reef. Certain sketches, cop- 
ies of which are submitted herewith, 
carefully made shortly after the mast 
came ashore, show it to be 73 feet long, 
whole from heel to top, not broken off as 
it might have been if the ship had been 
dismasted in a storm at sea, but com- 
plete, showing in detail the framing of 
the mast at the heel or step, indicating 
that the ship from which it came had 
not foundered and had not been dis- 
masted at sea, but must have been 
broken to pieces on a reef, and that the 
unbroken mast must thereafter have 
been detached and drifted awaj- with the 
wreckage of the lower yard that was 
found at the same place on the south 
shore of Hawaii.* 

* These sketches were made by Mr H. M. 
Whitne}', of Honohiki, in August, 1861, a few 
weeks after the finding ot the wreckage, which 
had then already been identified as the main- 
mast of the Levant, and so reported to the Navy 
Department, at Washington. Mr Whitney vis- 
ited the place where the wreckage came ashore 
and made the sketches, by special request of 



A Doubtful Island of the Pacific 



489 



If the Levant was wrecked on a reef 
within the region here considered ( or, 
indeed, much farther east) and there- 
after broken to pieces in heav}^ surf, 
the prevaihng westerly current might 
have carried her drifting wreckage in a 
few months' time to the south end of 
Haw^aii, where the spar, identified as 
her mainmast, was found. This west- 
erly current is usually very strong, with 
slight southerly variations. The Ta- 
covia, l3nng to during the night, with 
engines stopped, drifted a mile per hour 
in a west-southwesterly direction. The 
drifting spar, if moving with a velocity 
of half a mile to a mile per hour, would 
travel from 300 to 700 miles per month. 
The Levant sailed from Hilo in Sep- 
tember, i860, and the drifting wreckage 
was found on the Hawaiian shore in 
June, 1 86 1, nearly nine months there- 
after. 

If the Levant, sailing in the night 
with a smooth sea, struck upon the reef 
of an ordinary coral island, especially 
at high tide, her ship's company might 
possibly have landed without the loss 
of a single life, in which event there 
would have been many and still might 
be some survivors whose chances of liv- 
ing till now on a fairly habitable and 
healthful island might, perhaps, have 
been far more favorable than elsewhere, 
exposed as they would have been not 

interested parties, in order to preserve recorded 
evidence of the dimensions and descriptive de- 
tails of the spar. The sketches were laid aside 
shortl}' after and were never brought to light 
again until my recent visit to Honolulu, more 
than forty j-ears thereafter, in search of the de- 
sired information, when Mr Whitne_v found and 
placed them at my disposal. 

Recent inquiry shows that the Levant' s lower 
masts were put into the ship at the Boston navy 
yard, in 1858; but no record of that work has 
yet been found there, which affords any infor- 
mation for comparison of dimensions or details, 
which might serve to identify tlie mast found 
at Hawaii or confirm its supposed relation to 
the Levant. 



only to the constant risks of life under 
existing conditions of modern civiliza- 
tion, but also to the hazards of war, 
which was their vocation and in which 
they would have been actively engaged 
a few months later if they had duly 
reached their destination at Panama. 

In this connection I may venture to 
recall the interesting incident that Ed- 
ward Everett Hale's Philip Nolan, "The 
Man without a Country," ended his 
romantic career on the Levant on this 
her last and fatal voyage, since in the 
author's imagination he must have been 
aboard when she last put out to sea 
from the port of Hilo. There may 
have been a whole ship's company of 
men, now without a country, cast away 
on this mysterious island about fortj^- 
four years ago. some of whom may be 
still watching for a sail. 

This would be, indeed, a marvelous 
thing, but it is not beyond the range of 
possibility. The mutineers of the 
Bounty lived on Pitcairn Island 18 years 
before they were found there, and the 
extreme and solitary isolation of this 
supposed land would fully account for 
the long undiscovered seclusion of the 
castaways. If there be an island in this 
uttermost part of the sea, and if, sooner 
or later, it should be found with sur- 
vivors of the Levant, its story might 
well be thought the strangest sea ro- 
mance in the history of the world. The 
venerable author of " The Man without 
a Country ' ' has manifested a very keen 
interest in all that pertains to the recent 
search for the Levant and in the efforts 
to solve the mystery of her fate. 

On my return to San Francisco after 
the cruise of the Tacoma I received a 
note of welcome from Dr Hale, which 
he had sent to await my coming. He 
wrote, "If you have found dear Phil 
Nolan bring him at once to this house ; 
I will adopt him as my grandfather. ' ' 



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